The Next Great Turn of the Wheel

The Last Great Commons From the Village Green to the Divided Highway In pre-industrial England, every village—and even many urban neighborhoods—had a central shared space: the commons. Think of it as a kind of miniature Central Park, proportioned for small communities. These were lands not owned by anyone, yet essential to all—used for grazing animals, gathering fuel, or simply being together. They were the social and cultural heart of everyday life. That changed with enclosure. Starting in the 18th century, these communal lands were subdivided, fenced, and converted into private plots. The shift was disruptive and often devastating—people were displaced, and long-standing traditions collapsed. But enclosure also played a foundational role in modern Europe. It encouraged agricultural efficiency, increased land productivity, and helped lay the groundwork for Britain’s rise as an industrial and food-secure power. Still, something was lost. And it wasn’t just the land. The Original Tragedy of the Commons The term "tragedy of the commons" emerged from this era. It described how shared resources, when left unmanaged, were depleted by individual self-interest. The commons, after all, had often become exhausted, stripped of productivity by overuse. Enclosure promised a solution: by assigning ownership, you could assign responsibility. But while enclosure solved some problems, it created others. It stripped away democratic, collective space. It privatized not just land, but the possibility of shared identity, access, and voice. That legacy—both its benefits and its failures—echoes loudly today. America's Roads: A New Commons Fast forward a few centuries, and look around: America’s roads have become the last great commons. They are the open space we all use, even if we don't think of them that way. Highways, streets, and freeways carry commerce, family, culture. They are the literal and figurative arteries of the country. The road, like the old English commons, became a symbol—of freedom, mobility, and possibility. But that freedom has turned against itself. Congestion now clogs urban cores. Accidents and emissions mount. The car-dependent design of modern American cities separates people from necessities—and from each other. The system is overcrowded, overstressed, and no longer works the way it once did. The New Enclosure: Autonomous Systems Enter autonomous vehicles. Their promise is clear: safety, efficiency, cleaner cities. But to fulfill that promise, our roadways must become highly managed environments. Vehicles will need to talk to each other and to the roads themselves. Algorithms will calculate traffic flows, prioritize deliveries, and direct passengers. Roads will become programmable systems—less like highways, more like code. And that means the enclosure of the open road is already underway. What We Risk Losing As with the English commons, this enclosure will bring undeniable progress. We may reclaim urban space for housing, parks, and people. Walking may become easier, safer, and more pleasant. For many, these are gains worth celebrating. But we will also lose something harder to quantify: spontaneity, freedom, the mythos of the open road. The American highway system has long served as a metaphor for freedom. It’s embedded in everything from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road to Springsteen lyrics. As it vanishes into a seamless, driverless grid, we will mourn its loss—just as the English once mourned the loss of their fields. Lessons from Europe—and a Warning Travel to older European cities, and you can still feel what urban life was like before the dominance of the automobile. Narrow, walkable streets. Corner stores. Public squares. Places built for people, not machines. These cities are not just picturesque—they’re functional. They allow life to happen on foot, at a human scale. By contrast, American cities built for the car often neglect the pedestrian entirely. Sidewalks lead to nowhere. Grocery stores and schools are out of reach without a vehicle. The design reflects the values of the system that shaped it. The coming transformation is a chance to redesign again. A New Kind of Commons As autonomous systems reclaim roads from individual drivers, vast resources will open up—physically, economically, and socially. Departments of transportation and planning agencies will become stewards of this new space. They must not repeat the mistakes of the past. This time, we know what’s at stake. The profits of this transformation—whether measured in land, data, or mobility—must be reinvested in the people. Roads must remain a shared good, not another asset captured by the powerful. If the road was America’s last great commons, then its enclosure demands our attention. Not to stop it—but to get it right. We owe it to ourselves to do better than the English did in the 18th century.